The state agency that oversees workplace safety has found that a serious injury to an animal shelter worker was caused by a “serious lack of safety and training” that “put the worker at risk,” and ordered the city of Los Angeles to file a 56. He was fined $3,250.
The California Department of Occupational Safety and Health said the city failed to protect and train staff at the San Pedro Animal Shelter and “failed to assess and correct overcrowding at the animal shelter, resulting in animal attacks and There was an incident of biting an employee.” Cal/OSHA said in a statement Tuesday.
The May 31 attack resulted in an employee’s leg “severely injured requiring hospitalization,” Cal/OSHA said.
Leslie Collier, a kennel supervisor at San Pedro’s Harbor Animal Shelter, was letting a dog out of its kennel to show it to a rescue group earlier this year when the dog “flipped over” and attacked her leg, The Times reported. told. She told NBC that she had undergone several surgeries and lost half of her thigh.
At the time of the attack, Los Angeles Animal Services said in a statement that it was housing 1,500 dogs at six shelters in the city, but only had the capacity to “safely and humanely care” for about 800 at a time. .
The city’s animal shelters have long suffered from overcrowding and understaffing, and are chronically underfunded. Due to lack of space, dogs are routinely double or triple stacked in kennels or kept in crates in hallways.
Euthanasia at shelters has skyrocketed this year. A Times analysis found that 1,224 dogs were killed from January to September, a 72% increase from the same period a year earlier. Some dogs are sentenced to death not because they are seriously ill or arrive with significant behavioral issues, but because shelters are unable to meet the dogs’ basic needs.
The six California Labor Code violations that Cal/OSHA cited in issuing the fines were related to Harbor Shelter’s animal control, violence prevention, training, personal protection, and emergency response.
“Employees and their supervisors were not trained in effective animal handling and safety procedures,” Cal/OSHA said in the citation.
City employees and supervisors did not have proper personal protective equipment or training, and a “lack of an effective communication system” delayed emergency response, the Cal/OSHA report said.
Cal/OSHA Secretary Debra Lee said in a statement that the brutal attack on the employee in May “highlights the serious consequences when employers fail to take appropriate steps to protect employees from preventable risks.” “I am doing so,” he said.
“While we cannot undo the damage caused, we can hold employers accountable,” Lee said. “All employees deserve a workplace that prioritizes health and safety.”
Mayor Karen Bass and representatives from Animal Services did not immediately comment on the fine.
Dog bites associated with animal shelters are a serious problem for the city.
In June, the City Council agreed to pay $7.5 million to a Van Nuys woman whose arm was severed after being attacked by a dog she adopted from a city shelter.
The woman’s complaint alleges that shelter staff failed to notify her in writing of the dog’s bite history before adopting it, as required by state law.
A jury has awarded $6.8 million in damages to a volunteer at the city’s Lincoln Heights Shelter who was attacked and nearly had his arm ripped off by a dog last year. The jury found the city liable for gross negligence.
